LINKDING

Summary: “It started with the ghost,” Horatio said after a moment, clearly coming to a decision. He looked upset, finally, but in a frustrated way, not in the way you would expect from someone who had just witnessed four people die, and one of them in his arms. “I got roped into it because of the ghost.” // Why Hamlet chose to put his trust in Horatio. ➜ yuletide fic - for Hamlet ➜ taking an interpretation that Horatio and Hamlet barely knew each other before the start of the play, and running with it from Horatio's pov ➜ I love the way this interpretation shapes the story! ➜ And Horatio's pov is so good. the way he feels helplessly drawn into the mess by Hamlet's charisma, never sure what he can do or what he should do, but unable to make himself step back and leave Hamlet alone ➜ because Hamlet IS so charismatic, and so visibly struggling at the same time! and there's so much depth there that Horatio simply cannot have the context to understand, but he wants to, he wants to be there for Hamlet ➜ but in the end, of course, all he can do is tell everyone what happened. ➜ I'm so emotions!!!! ➜ 9k words

summary: She'd never been anyone's favorite before he'd told her that, the lesser daughter of a prestigious family that had enough heirs and spares that she could be given away and the act called an honor. It was a scary but lovely thing to be the best, the most loved. When she'd heard those words she'd clutched them to her chest and hoped she'd never prove them false. That did not mean that she did not hate him, too. // OR: Ning Yingying loves her shizun; she loves Binghe, too. These things come into conflict, whether she wants them to or not. ➤ an svsss fic set in the original PIDW, about Ning Yingying ➤ and holy shit this fic is so good, so everything I didn't even know to hope for from a fic about pidw nyy, I am all emotions?! ➤ the complexity of nyy's relationships with sqq and lbh, the mix of love and hate, the way she doesn't feel able to do anything but to witness and to go along with how things are ➤ and seeing the awful things that happen through her eyes.....it's so powerful and bleak and believable ➤ I adore this fic, I'm just absolutely blown away by it ➤ 9k words

summary: <blockquote>“If you died,” Huaisang started, not knowing quite where he was going with this. “I mean, you did die, da-ge, but if someone had killed you… what would you want to happen next?” / In the wake of Nie Mingjue’s death, Nie Huaisang realises how much he’s been left in ignorance. How could the artsy little brother be left to run their ancestral asteroid-mining clan? What other secrets are hidden in his san-ge’s past? And how should he get revenge? Maybe having da-ge’s personality backed up on a server was supposed to help with all this. Maybe.</blockquote> ➤ mdzs space au about nie huaisang and his years-long project in avenging his da-ge ➤ a repeated theme throughout the fic is nhs visiting and talking to back-ups that had been taken of nmj's personality before death, and the way that this makes literal how HAUNTED nhs is by his brother's absence is just sooooooo good ➤ the worldbuilding is great, the things that are changed from canon due to this different context are great, the anguish and monofocus of nhs are great ➤ I AM ALL EMOTIONS ;_; ➤ 8k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>all I really want is some peace, man</blockquote> ➤ author's note: "doomed best friends who understand each other so deeply" ➤ an Untamed vid about Wei Wuxian & Wen Qing ➤ ahhhhhh I have SO MANY feels about them and this vid GETS them ➤ ouchy in the best way ➤ audio is solely the music ➤ no subtitles ➤ 4:41 in length ➤ thanks to lesbianwangyibo for the rec!

Summary: <blockquote>Wei Wuxian & Jin Guangyao as narrative mirrors.</blockquote> ➤ the bit it says about how people often talk about how lwj and lxc both put all their love and trust into one man, and only one of them was right to - but actually before his resurrection wwx ALSO causes a lot of death and harm to loved ones

Summary: <blockquote>The slow purpling of the evening sky makes their robes blend into their shadows, their shadows blend into the still water stretched out before them. Home, Jiang Cheng thinks, satisfied, and A-Ling exhales softly against him, and everything is good, and none of them move to leave.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hua Cheng dreams of a dark coffin.</blockquote> ➤ perfect remix of "this slumber that creeps to me"

<blockquote>In the three-layered coffin in Yong'An, Xie Lian dreams.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“I know what you’re thinking,” he insisted, “and you’re a fucking idiot. You think it’s not fair that I have a core and you don’t. You think your life has been hard. You think the worst possible thing has happened to you.” He knew it was true, because he remembered thinking that. He’d lain in bed for days like a fool, believing that nothing could be worse than losing every hope of cultivation. “You hate seeing me because I have something that you don’t, and I —” he choked on the words. “You have no fucking idea.” The other Jiang Cheng’s face grew more and more contemptuous as he talked. “You’re wrong,” he said icily. “I don’t want a single thing you have. Not at the price you paid.” --- Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian find themselves in a world where things went differently.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Xichen closes his eyes and holds the rules in his chest. He is a pond, slow-moving and lined with cattails, bending around rocks and honoring dams. He knows a limit of grass and beach and stone, knows how far he can lap over their edges. He does not dry up, he does not flood. He takes rain and spills, branches, gravel--he glints sunlight at his surface, and pulls ugly things down below the coating of his silt. / A study of Lan Xichen's year in seclusion.</blockquote> ➤ internal screaming

<blockquote>Lien would like to return to her egg now.</blockquote> ➤ Lien's hatching and childhood

<blockquote>“What is taquitos,” she asks her house, carefully, in its tongue.</blockquote> ➤ this is SO GOOD

<blockquote>The Force isn't the only kind of power</blockquote> ➤ Leia-centric, post-movie. This fic leaves me wanting to swear at it, in the most complimentary kind of way. HDU give me all these feels, fic!

<blockquote>(Or, a pregnant Diana Maturin, nee Villiers, spends her confinement at Ashgrove Cottage, writes many letters, and sends one.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>The aftermath of Tybalt's first visit to a brothel, and the seeds of his rift with Julia. Based on the Hungarian production. (No Tybalt/Julia in this, but there is offscreen reference to Tybalt having somewhat traumatic sex that one could probably argue isn't fully consensual, and he's 14 and hence underage by most standards today.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>SHIELD goes down. Pepper Potts deals with the aftermath.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Tybalt grows up.</blockquote>

<blockquote>He licks his lips, tasting paint, and imagines he can still taste the salt of his tears, even though he had scrubbed them off the night before, as if with them he could scrub away his grief, wash it away with his paint to mix with the muck of the city, forgotten. Giulietta and Tybalt's feline henchman have an encounter the day after Tybalt's death. Gen, although you could also read it as very subtextual post-slash if that's your thing. (Based on the recent Italian production of the Presgurvic musical.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>When Julia almost dies of the scarlet fever, young Tybalt makes a bargain with Death. It doesn't go quite how he hoped it would. (Budapesti Operettszínház productions of both Rómeó és Júlia and Elisabeth as canon.)</blockquote>

<blockquote> Jean Valjean realizes that there is yet more that Toulon could take from him. Note: This story contains some offscreen rape of OCs, perceived sexual threat from someone in authority, a brief mention of suicide, internalized homophobia, and the main character spends much of his time dissociated from his surroundings. There is no graphic onscreen rape.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Fauchelevent mourns his losses. This started with "You know what that means! Cart/Fauchelevent" but it stayed depressingly gen.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This story might be subtitled "Why you shouldn't rape your slave if you expect him to save your life in hostile country." There is no graphic on-screen rape, but there is reference to Marcus raping Esca in the past. I don't really believe in this characterization of Marcus, given that they're buddies by the end of the movie, but if I did, this is what I think Esca would do.</blockquote>

<blockquote>And having just said all of that about Susan, upon having given the matter far too much thought, the real Problem of Susan, to my mind, had nothing to do with her family dying. It sucks a lot, but it happens and people can die without God Specifically Being Out To Get You. People cope with that and move on all the time, and we feel for them, but they do not get recorded as one of the Great Literary Injustices. No, what I started thinking was that I’m thirty-five. I love my life. I have work I care about and a man I am quite desperately in love with. And if I suddenly fell through a wardrobe and was eleven years old again, I would go so batshit insane that they would have to make up new words for how insane I had gone. I expect I might have a hard time playing nice with the god responsible. So, y’know. (I realize that half my short stories turn up as “Point of view of the woman in this otherwise well-known story” and beg forgiveness in advance.) This one may even qualify as fan-fic! I make you a gift of it, although if my plane goes down in the Atlantic, please remember me for Digger and the Little Red Riding Hood thing instead.</blockquote>

<blockquote>All hillmen are traitors, and you always knew this.</blockquote> ➤ Or: giving Alex charaterization and motivation and backstory and a sympathetic viewpoint

<blockquote>One of the weird things about becoming the Bookman is his photo gallery.</blockquote>